Recently, Sam Bankman Fried was found guilty by a jury of the largest securities fraud case in American history. The numbers were in the billions. People were asking, Why would the son of two Stanford Law professors, a graduate of MIT, do such a thing? But the question we need to be asking is not why. Be it Sam Bankman Fried or Elizabeth Holmes of Theranos. The question is how did the deceivers become deceived? For you cannot commit great deception without first being deceived.
Ethan:Raising joyful children in an angry world, a podcast dedicated to faithful parents navigating their families through a stormy culture.
Paul:Welcome to Raising Joyful Children in an Angry World. I'm your host, Paul Osborne. Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War, and it famously tells us that all warfare is based on deception. Just look at the current wars, and all the divisive opinions that come out of it. It points to deception. There is a war in the Kingdom of Heaven, and parents need to get an understanding of it, particularly how the Great Deceiver works. If we're going to raise children, in the kingdom of heaven. I remember the first time I shared Matthew chapter 11 verse 12 in a bible study on family. The verse reads the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by storm. Oh one brother heard the word violence but not the context. The kingdom of heaven, and it was quite challenging to help her expand her understanding of the word. We weren't talking about a fist fight. We're talking about spiritual warfare and the violence that is involved in it regarding the soul and the mind. And of course, as Sun Tzu says, the deception, because the goal is always to deceive, to pollute the spirit and the mind. If the triangle of joy is knowing who you are, what you believe and where you belong, the target of the enemy is going to be what you believe. The deceiver is going to try and capture what you believe because, well, as we learned from Todd Rose's book, Collective Illusions. We're vulnerable to conformity. Boy, if we can, we can capture our conformity bias in some belief that's false. There's a real win. And then of course, James Clear's book, Atomic Habits, he talks about the power of what you believe. And so it's easy to recognize that this is going to be something that the enemy is going to go after because of our vulnerability and the power of what you believe. What's hard for us sometimes is to see the source that is behind the deception. I believe a closer look at the Bankman Fried and Elizabeth Holmes fraud cases helps explain and teach us a little of what we need to know. I hope to point out that it was Bankman Fried's supposed privileges That helped sink his soul see too many of us I think have the idea that if we give our kids the privileges of wealth a nice education one that the world admires Maybe we have a little bit of charitable work sprinkled in because our society tells us that you are nothing more than body and mind Make a bunch of money then do your bucket list. That's kind of American philosophy Well, we get, we get pulled into thinking that this is all there is, and this is what we must do. Educate your kids, teach them how to generate wealth, and all will be good. And yet in this case, and in countless others, nothing could be further from the truth. I believe there are some things that stand out as to what Sam Bankman Fried believed. And the first is the superiority of the present age. Oh, how the technocrats teach this. It's a belief that the past must be dismissed as a bunch of Stone Age ideas. And these dogmas and these slogans fail to give us any kind of truth. The Sunday Times writer James Marriott published this weekend, A Defense of Shakespeare. He's concerned that Shakespeare is being pulled out of schools, including America's Ivy League. And he grieves the loss of the insights that the great playwright William Shakespeare offered to the world and then he comments as to the indignity and the arrogance of none other than Sam Bankman Fried. According to Marriott, he claims that Sam Bankman Fried is believed to have said that Shakespeare could not have given the world the greatest literature because he did not emerge in a time of higher education and of great societal wealth. Oh, there's the bias and the belief that the present age is the greatest and the past is kind of, well, dumbed down. Marriott goes into the temptation and the folly that drives this. He says those that barge in with an insecure determination to come off better from the confrontation are doomed to reveal themselves as fools. But he sees the motive. He wants to feel superior. And so in that pride comes this belief that This is the apogee of human achievement. We're in the crowning moment of human greatness, and it's how our generation and others get caught in the biased belief and foolish belief that now is the wisest time. And it's not just our kids who get caught up in the, Oh, Mom, Dad, that's so old fashioned. That's so back in the Stone Age. We sometimes plant this seed and we have to understand that ideas and values and ethics are not like your phone They don't become obsolete. The question is, is it true? And does the Bible tell us it's true? Brushing off the elders wisdom in favor of our peers is not wise according to the Bible King Rehoboam, he is the son of Solomon. Talk about a wise parent. Yet he rejects the advice of his elders, he consults with the guys he grew up with, and his kingdom is filled with the rejection of God's laws, it delivers a civil war, and the divided kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Peter tells the youth in his church, before he speaks about the devil roaming around like a roaring lion, He says submit to the authority of the elders, who he had told to take care of them like they were sheep and have the right motives. Falling to deception often starts with the decision to reject historical wisdom, dismiss the elders in preference for the peers. And we've got to help our kids understand that what the scripture says about wisdom, your peers are not likely to give you the best advice. Now belief number two, or maybe even a habit that we see in this society, is this rush to get to the finish. Just tell me who's right. Just give me the conclusion. I don't have time for the facts. And many of us do not recognize our vulnerability to propaganda because of our diminished critical thinking skills. They've been dialed down because of our preference for conclusions instead of facts. The days of reading, interpreting, taking notes, studying all sides of an equation have been significantly reduced by technology because it does the heavy lifting. So instead of studying Shakespeare or reading great literature, we're reading Wikipedia or Google. And we're about to get more of this with AI. And the effect is like a digital leaflet, like some old pamphlet that's now electronic, with a short little one sided opinion that satisfies our desire to get to the bottom line in our rush. Our education's like going to a gym where robots lift. The weights and and it weakens the soul and it weakens the mind. And then we just find ourselves in the Todd Rose copycat trap repeating what we just heard. Now the third belief, and this is one that I am going to go into a little deeper, is the belief of good intentions. Sam Bankman Fried claimed that he wanted to make the most money To do the most good. In fact, it was the slogan of his parents. His mother wrote a book about it he never saw, nor did his parents see that this slogan, the most money to do the most good is idolatry. The money becomes the God of the slogan. It's the conclusion that matters. Not the means, according to them. His mother's words leave blame behind, and we'll talk about that. But can you see this, belief system, this making money your God, got him into this mess. He and his family were believers in what is called Effective Altruism. It is very popular out in the Silicon Valley. The belief is something like this, you use science... and money to do the most good. But what is good? And what happens when science and money become your god? The technocrats who teach their own moral laws created a son who broke and smashed the walls of do not lie and do not steal in ways never seen by believing and claiming he could do. It's confidence in the flesh, it's self generated ethics, and it's all being used by the devil in convincing us that the end justifies the means. Elizabeth Holmes bought the same lie. Hey, just get me a device that tests blood from one drop. I don't care how we get there. I don't care what we have to say about it. We're not capable. of effective altruism without the saving grace of Jesus. And this is why Christian families have to teach accountability. Because of our vulnerability to self deception. The Proverbs, they tell us, look, the first to speak sounds right until his neighbor comes forward and examines him. You don't get a fast conclusion by hearing two sides or maybe more from a story. Jesus says take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I'm gentle and lowly in heart and you'll find rest for your souls. But we reject the idea of rest. We're in a hurry. In the Gospel of John, he says, When we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. And the technocratic fraud should not believe in sin. That's the stuff of accountability and blame. Leave that behind. And so we rush past learning from Jesus, we prefer conclusions, not places of study, we rob the soul of spiritual rest, and we become vulnerable to propaganda, and we find ourselves... With self justification. I was trying to do the most good and we're forgetting that we're justified by the forgiveness and righteousness of Christ through his shed blood. All of these, all of these sort of beliefs make you vulnerable to what is called perfectionism or utopia. In the case of the Bankman Frye family, they lived by Effective altruism. His mother's beyond blame. One writer, David Morris, describes the paper is being summarized as arguing that the philosophy of personal responsibility has ruined criminal justice and economic policy. It's time to move past blame. Even the progressive Atlantic. wrestled with this unorthodox ethics and morals. So how do I know, you might say, well, where do you know that Bankman Fried believed this? Well, a great deal of the money went to political action committees and candidates. People promising to save the world. There's a congressman in the Arlington, Dallas area that was a receiver of these funds. And her whole campaign is all about protecting the future. Oh, we won't have the next plague. It's all these candidates that Wadi Bachman would call social Marxist. The question becomes, how do we fight these fronts? First, we gotta slow down. Even Billy Joel in his song, Vienna. The song Vienna Waits for You tells the youth to slow down. It's from that movie 13 Going on 30. It has a line, Too bad, but it's the life you lead. You're so ahead of yourself, you forgot what you need. We have to slow down. Secondly, we have to comprehend that no age is superior to another. There's wisdom in all ages. So take the time to learn old wisdom. Teach your kids to respect elders. Have a relationship with somebody older at your church or grandparents. Wisdom is not technology. It doesn't go obsolete. If it's true, read old books, see a classic play, learn an old skill, fish, hunt, carve wood, something that has been around for a long time. And lastly, Show what good is. When it comes to good, help your children discover what real good looks like. It is the small things. Jesus says, giving a glass of water in my name that you'll be rewarded in heaven. The idea of being some big scale world changer apart from God is massively misguided good. God tells us to love our neighbor. That's a great place to do good. Jesus tells us. We do these acts in his name, not in our name, not in our source of power and wealth. Before Sam Bankman fried, frauded people out of billions, his families invested, taught, and promoted. The serpents lie from the beginning. Eat from the tree of good and evil and you can be like God. The Silicon Technocratic version. Oh, it sounds so good. Make a bunch of money and learn a lot of science to do the most good. It's an altruistic motive, but without God and God's constraint, it turns to evil. See, the thing is about the lion, we think we're hunting him when it is he who is hunting us. He deceives us. He runs our self confidence. Without Jesus into all sorts of foolishness. If all war is deception, including the kingdom of heaven and spiritual war, we then need truth. Truth, Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the light. The ultimate battle for the heart and soul is a fight for identity. Our king invites our kids to know who they are, what to believe, and where they belong. Until next time, let's remember the words for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven.